Appears to be a legal oddity. Renaming the islands to boats must have seemed an easy solution at the time. >Under section 67 of the Naval Discipline Act 1866,

Appears to be a legal oddity. Renaming the islands to boats must have seemed an easy solution at the time. >Under section 67 of the Naval Discipline Act 1866, the provisions of the act only applied to officers and men of the Royal Navy borne on the books of a warship.